This round of Eurobarometer surveys diverged from standard trend questions, instead focusing on agriculture, energy, and discrimination issues. Respondents gave their views on the role of the agricultural policy of the European Union (EU), whether the policy was playing its role well or badly, in what situations the EU should use an agricultural policy, and whether the EU should subsidize agricultural products or grant more funds to the overall rural economy and to direct support for farmers. An... (more info)

This round of Eurobarometer surveys diverged from standard trend questions, instead focusing on agriculture, energy, and discrimination issues. Respondents gave their views on the role of the agricultural policy of the European Union (EU), whether the policy was playing its role well or badly, in what situations the EU should use an agricultural policy, and whether the EU should subsidize agricultural products or grant more funds to the overall rural economy and to direct support for farmers. Another subject of the surveys was energy problems. Respondents indicated to what extent different sources of energy were used in their countries, whether energy use was increasing, which energy sources contributed significantly to global warming and climate change, and which factors could make a significant impact on the amount of energy used in the EU. Those polled provided their opinions on how to solve the problem of EU dependency on other countries in terms of energy supply, what governments' priorities with respect to energy should be, and the main reason for lack of interest among young people in energy-related matters. They were also asked what they were doing to save energy, what energy-saving measures they would support, whether they would pay more for energy produced from renewable sources, whether they paid attention to energy use when buying products, whether they knew how much they paid for electricity last year, and whether they were aware of EU activities in energy-related research. Respondents named what sources they used to obtain information about energy issues, gave their opinions about producing nuclear energy using nuclear fusion, named energy-related areas that they would like to know more about, indicated which energy
sources would be least expensive, most efficient, and environmentally friendly in 2050, and commented on whether in 20 years all energy needs would be satisfied by one or by a mix of different energy sources, and if so, which ones. The poll also elicited respondents' views on discrimination issues. Those polled were asked whether in the last two years they themselves were discriminated against or harassed or witnessed someone being discriminated against or harassed at work, when looking for a job, in public places, when getting housing, or when they were at school, and if so, what the reason was. Respondents were also asked whether they and people in general thought that it was right/wrong to refuse to give anyone a job, training, or promotion, or
to deal differently with customers based on their ethnicity, religion, physical disability, mental illness, age, or sexual orientation. In addition, respondents were asked whether they knew their rights in case they felt discriminated against and whether they were willing to complain or go to court if something like that happened. Demographic and other background information collected includes respondents' age, gender, nationality, marital status, left-right political self-placement, occupation, age at completion of education, household income, type and size of locality, and region of residence.

Universe:
Citizens of the EU aged 15 and over residing in the 15 EU member countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Data Types:
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

The original data collection was carried out by the European Opinion Research Group - EEIG on request of the European Commission.

The codebook and setup files for this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many European languages.

The documentation and/or setup files may contain references to Norway, but Norway was not a participant in this wave of Eurobarometer surveys. This collection contains no data for Norway.

The fieldwork dates in the data file for France are not consistent with fieldwork dates in the "Technical Specification" section of the ICPSR codebook.

The total number of interviews for East Germany is 1,014 and for West Germany is 1,040. The table in the "Technical Specifications" section of the ICPSR codebook shows the total number of interviews as 1,040 for East Germany and 1,014 for West Germany.

Methodology

Sample:
Multistage national probability samples.

Weight:
Please review the "Weighting Information" section of the ICPSR codebook for this Eurobarometer study.

Mode of Data Collection:
face-to-face interview

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2003-01-31

Version History:

2010-04-22 The data have been further processed by GESIS, and the SAS
and SPSS setup files and codebook have been updated. Also, a SAS
transport (CPORT) file, an SPSS system file, a Stata setup and system
file, a tab-delimited ASCII data file, and a data collection instrument
have been added.

2005-04-01 All embargos have been lifted and data
previously unavailable are now available. Also, a SAS setup file has
been added.